Lemon Cake with strawberries

Ingredients:

Deep baking dish or Pyrex dish (30x40 cm or 9x13 inches)

Some grease

For the batter:

100 g (1 stick) butter or margarine 

100 g sugar 

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 

1 pinch of salt 

4 eggs 

300 g flour 

3 leveld teaspoons baking powder 

Juice and peel from one lemon

75 ml (1/4 cup) milk

1 pound strawberries

Some powdered sugar

Preparation:

1. Wash strawberries, drain excess water (e.g. put them on a paper towel), remove core, then cut them into halves or quarters depending on their size.

2. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350F). Grease baking sheet or dish.

3. Using an electric hand mixer blend butter until smooth, add sugar, vanilla extract and salt and whisk until sugar isn't crunchy any longer. Add eggs, one at a time, and whisk for about 1/2 minute per egg.

4. Mix flour and baking powder, sift, and add in two portions to the batter. Alternate with milk if the batter gets too heavy.

5. Add lemon juice and lemon peel, then spread batter into greased baking form. Add strawberries on top of the batter.

6. Bake cake at 180 degrees Celsius (350F) for about 1 h or until toothpick comes out clean.

7. Remove cake from oven let cool, the sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

Chocolate Cake

This cake uses semisweet chocolate and a little instant coffee giving it a nice balanced, not to sweet chocolate taste.

Ingredients:

Springform (26 or 28 cm in diameter, 10 or 11 inches)

Some grease

For the batter:

300 g semisweet chocolate 

4 egg whites 

1 pinch of salt 

250 g (2 sticks) very soft butter

100 g sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1 package vanilla sugar 

4 egg yolks

1 teaspoon instant coffee powder 

125 g all-purpose flour

Preparation:

1. Melt chocolate in a bowl over hot water. Grease springform. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius (340 F).

2. Separate eggs. Using an electric hand mixer who's egg whites and salt until very stiff peaks appear.

3. Whisk butter until smooth, add the sugar and keep whisking until you can no longer hear the crunch from the sugar. Add vanilla extract or vanilla sugar. Mix in egg yolks, one at a time.add coffee powder and melted chocolate, and whisk until batter is smooth. Make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl. Soft flour into batter and mix. Lastly, carefully fold in egg whites.

4. Pour batter into greased springform, then bake cake for about 30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean at 170 degrees Celsius (340 F).

5. Remove cake from oven, let cool down before serving.

Comments:

1. This cake is terrific when lukewarm and served with freshly whipped cream.

2. You can also serve this cake with warm cherries and freshly whipped cream.

Eggnogg Cake

This cake doesn't have to made around Christmas time, it's great all year round. For this cake I buy alcoholic eggnogg like Verpoorten, a famous Dutch eggnogg, but a cheaper one such as Pennsylvania Dutch will work, too. I've never made this cake with alcohol-free eggnog, but I don't think it will make a difference.

Ingredients:

Gugelhupfform 

Grease

Some flour 

For the batter:

125 g all-purpose flour

125 g starch

4 leveled teaspoon baking powder

200 g powdered sugar 

2 packages vanilla sugar or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

250 ml vegetable oil 

250 ml eggnogg 

5 eggs 

1. Grease and flour Gugelhupfform. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350F).

2. Mix flour and starch in a large bowl. Add all remaining ingredients and mix everything using an electric hand mixer for at least 1 minute. Make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl during mixing the batter.

3. Pour batter into Gugelhupfform and bake cake for about 1 h at 180 degrees Celsius (350F) or until toothpick comes out clean.

4. Remove cake from oven, let cake cool down in Gugelhupfform for about 10 minutes. Flip form upside down, the cake should readily slide out. Dust cake with powdered sugar before serving.

Comments:

1. If you don't own a Gugelhupfform you can use a 9x13 inch Pyrex dish or 28 cm Springform. ( I haven't tried that, so you may have to test whether those sizes wor or if the cake rises too high and the amount used for the recipe needs to be scaled down or split into two baking forms).

2. If you don't want to use alcoholic eggnogg you can use alcohol-free eggnogg, again something I haven't tried yet, but I don't see why it shouldn't work.

Apricot-Cashew Cake

Ingredients:

For the batter:

250 g (2 sticks) of butter

150 g sugar 

5 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1 package vanilla sugar 

1 pinch of salt 

350 g all-purpose flour

2 leveled teaspoons baking powder 

100 g cashew nuts 

500 g (1 pound) fresh apricots or 1 can apricots

For the topping:

100 ml apricot liquor 

200 ml whipping cream

1 Greek yogurt vanilla 

50 ml apricot liquor 

Preparation:

1. Prepare apricots: Cut fresh apricots in half, remove pit, the dice apricot halves. For canned apricots, drain the juice, the dice apricot halves.

2. Remove 24 cashews, then chop the remaining cashews. Grease baking form and preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 F).

3. Using an electric hand mixer whisk butter until smooth. Add sugar, vanilla extract or sugar and salt. Whisk until sugar does no longer crunch. Add eggs, one at a time, and whisk for at least 1/2 minute per egg.

4. Mix all-purpose flour and baking powder. Sift mixture into a new bowl, then add flour in two portions into batter.

5. Spread batter evenly in baking dish. Sprinkle apricot and cashew pieces over the batter. Bake cake for about 30 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (350 F).

6. Remove cake from oven. Brush the hot cake with apricot liquor, then let cake cool down and cut into pieces.

7. Whip cream until fully stiff. Mix yoghurt and apricot liquor. Fold whipped cream into yoghurt. Fill piping bag with yoghurt mixture and decorate each piece of the cake with some cream, then add a cashew on top.

Comments:

1. I didn't have any apricot liquor, so I mixed a little apricot jam with vodka. Since vodka is very neutral it takes on the taste of the apricots. Alternatively, if you use canned apricots you can use the apricot juice.

2. Make sure to use a very dry Greek yogurt. Any additional liquid will turn the whipped cream liquid. Also, avoid overmixing the yoghurt when adding the liquor or when folding in the whipped cream.

Orange-Almond Cake

Ingredients:

Springform (8 inch in diameter) or 8x8 inches Pyrex dish

Some grease

Stovetop pot

For the batter:

75 g (1/2 cup or 125 ml) plain breadcrumbs

110 g (1 cup or 250 ml) powdered sugar

110 g (1 cup or 250 ml) almond flour 

1 teaspoon baking powder 

190 ml (3/4 cup) vegetable oil 

4 eggs

1 orange (organic and unwaxed)

1 lemon (organic and unwaxed)

For the citrus syrup:

Juice of 1 orange

Juice of 1 lemon

30 g (1/3 cup or 80 ml) powdered sugar 

1 cinnamon stick

2 cloves

2 cardamom pods 

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 F). Grease bottom of springform or Pyrex dish.

2. Zest the lemon and the orange.

3. In a bowl combine breadcrumbs, powdered sugar, almond flour and baking powder, then mix.

4. In a separate bowl combine eggs and oil and whisk.

5. Pour the egg-oil mixture into the bowl containing the dry ingredients. Add orange and lemon zest and briefly mix everything together with a wooden spoon. Pour batter into the springform or Pyrex dish and bake for about 30 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (350 F).

6. In the meantime, combine the juice from the orange and lemon, the powdered sugar, cinnamon stick, cloves and cardamom pods in a stovetop pot. Briefly bring to a boil, then let simmer for 3 minutes. Remove the spices from the syrup.

7. Remove cake from oven when done (toothpick comes out clean). Spoon the hot syrup over the hot cake, repeat until the cake has absorbed all of the syrup.

8. Let cake fully cool down, remove from springform. Serve cake with a spoon of Greek yogurt.

Chocolate-Peppermint Cream Roll

Ingredients:

Deep baking sheet 

Parchment paper

For the sponge cake batter:

3 eggs

3 tablespoons hot water

150 g sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla sugar or 1 package vanilla sugar 

100 g all-purpose wheat flour 

25 g starch (potato)

25 g cocoa powder 

1 teaspoon baking powder 

For the filling:

400 g (1 pint) heavy whipping cream

1 package Andes peppermint chocolate mints

Decoration:

1-2 chocolate mints or some chocolate shavings 

Some mint leaves

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celsius (375 F).

2. Whisk eggs and hot water on highest setting for about 1 minute using an electric hand mixer. Add vanilla sugar or extract, then slowly pour in sugar while whisking. After adding the sugar keep whisking for another 2 minutes. Mix flour, starch, baking powder and cocoa; sift mixtures and add in three portions to batter, briefly mix in on lowest setting.

3. Line baking sheet with parchment paper, fold parchment paper around edges if necessary. Spread batter on parchment paper. Bake batter at 200 degrees Celsius (375 F) for about 10 minutes.

4. In the meantime, sprinkle some sugar on top of a kitchen towel. Immediately after removing sponge cake from oven place cake upside down on kitchen towel, remove parchment paper from back and roll up the sponge cake starting from the longer side. Let cool down rolled up.

5. Prepare filling: in a stovetop pot warm up the whipping cream and melt the peppermint chocolate mints in it. When chocolate is fully melted chill cream in refrigerator until cold.

6. Whip cream until stiff (you should be able to tilt the bowl or even put it upside down without the cream to slide out).

7. Carefully open the chocolate sponge roll. Use 2/3 of the cream to fill the chocolate sponge, then roll up again. Put about 3 tablespoons of the cream and set aside. Spread the remaining cream over the top of the sponge roll. Decorate the roll with the remaining cream using a piping bag. Sprinkle some chocolate shavings over top, decorate with some mint leaves.

8. Chill cream roll for at least three hours prior to serving.

Comments:

1. Traditionally one would use "After Eight" thin mints. Since I had a hard time finding this I used Andes thin mints instead.

2. I usually use potato starch for baking, but this time I used corn starch. I'm not sure if I hesitated for too long after removing the cake from the oven, if the oven wasn't at the right temperature, or if it was the cornstarch, but the roll broke twice when I was rolling it up. That hasn't happened to me so far, so I'm not yet sure what caused it.

Snowcake (Schneetorte or Kirschbaiser)

The original recipe for this cake uses a filling of gooseberries; however, I've never seen gooseberries in the US, so I used sour cherries instead. Although I don't know where the name comes from I can imagine the following explanation: The cake contains a yellow cake batter, which is overlayed with an airy and light meringue layer. The meringue is fluffy and crunchy like snow, so I could imagine that this is why the cake is named snowcake.

Ingredients:

2 Springformboden

Some grease

For the meringue:

3 egg whites

150 g sugar 

For the cake batter:

75 g (3/4 stick) butter or margarine 

75 g sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or 1 package vanilla sugar 

1 pinch of salt 

3 egg yolks

100 g all-purpose wheat flour

1/2 leveled teaspoon baking powder

Topping:

75 g slivered almonds 

Filling:

1 jar sour cherries (Morello cherries from Trader Joe's)

1 package Vanilla JELL-O cook and serve or 1 package vanilla pudding powder

400 g whipping cream 

2 tablespoons sugar

Preparation:

1. Grease the bottom of the springform baking pans. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (or 350 F).

2. Prepare meringue: Whisk egg whites until stiff peaks appear. In portions, slowly whisk in sugar. You have to go so slowly that you're not destroying the structure of the egg whites.

3. Prepare batter: Whisk butter or margarine until smooth and soft. Add sugar and vanilla extract or vanilla sugar and salt and whisk until sugar has dissolved (no crunch noise). Whisk in egg yolks, one at a time. Mix flour and baking powder, sift and add in two portions to cake batter.

4. Divide cake batter in half and spread on springform bottoms. Now divide meringue and spread on top of cake batter, sprinkle almonds on top. Enclose springform bottoms with edge and bake each cake layer for about 20 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius (or 350 F).

5. After removing cakes from oven immediately remove springform edge and let's cake layers cool down.

6. Prepare filling: Add cherries and juice to a stovetop pot. Add vanilla JELL-O cook and serve or vanilla pudding. While stirring bring to a boil, the remove from heat and let cool down. Whip cream with sugar until stiff.

7. Spread cooled cherry mixture on top of one cake layer, the spread whipped cream on top of cherries.

8. Cut the second cake layer into as many pieces as you want (usually 12-16). Put the pieces on top of the whipped cream. Chill cake for at least 1 h prior to serving.

Comments:

1. I only have a springform set with three different sizes. I used the large and the middle one for the cake layers. I spread the cherries and cream on top of the large sized bottom because whenever you try to assemble a cut layer on top of a cake you can never get the pieces so close together as an intact layer. So it turns out perfect with two different sized cake pans.

2. For a non traditional version you can certainly prepare this cake with other berries (raspberries or blueberries might go nicely).